


Lies The World Believes

by porcia_catonis



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Fellatio, M/M, Slash, post-murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-03
Packaged: 2018-02-19 18:01:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2397674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/porcia_catonis/pseuds/porcia_catonis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-murder, Richard can't sleep and finds himself having walked the entire distance to Henry's apartment in the pouring rain, and somehow, they end up getting an odd sort of comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lies The World Believes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my girlfriend who requested, and I quote "a fic where Richard Sucks Dick." ... So I did.

Richard was still shivering, even after all his clothes had been stripped away—soggy slacks left to dry, too-thin jacket and rain dappled shirt all freeing their owner now. Richard was wrapped in Henry’s comforter, now, teeth chattering occasionally, though Henry saw his visitor’s continual strain to bite it back, to hide it.

It was odd, the way he always seemed to end up housing Richard at death’s door, and he wondered if the other man would have ever come to visit him otherwise.

"I couldn’t sleep." Richard said, like he had early, in apology when Henry told him how absurd he looked, how suspicious this visit must be. 

"Neither could I," said Henry, with a glance to the stack of books he’d been busying himself with. They would have lasted him well enough until morning, this he knew. Henry sat down next to Richard, and the boy shivering felt more exposed than Henry knew he should have, with a quilted barrier between them.

"I haven’t." Richard swallowed. "Not since… Not for a long time now."

Henry only nodded. He not only knew just when sleep had been lost to Richard Papen, but he knew it was the last time he’d had either time or patience for resting himself. 

"I’m sorry." He responded to Henry’s silence like he had spoken. "I can go. It was stupid."

"No," Henry shook his head. "You’ll look even worse to everyone else, coming here alone in the rain for an hour, then hobbling back home. Stay until morning at least." He wasn’t lying. But something still swelled below the surface. Perhaps, he admitted, beyond pragmatism, he’d had not been so anxious to cast Richard away, anyhow. "You’re welcome to my bed, again."

He was somewhat startled by the blush this earned from his companion. “What?” And then, after a pause, he spoke again. “I mean.” He cleared his throat. “I won’t put you out of it a second time. I can’t.”

Henry shrugged. “The pullout wants use. I won’t be harmed at all.” And he was none too eager to activate another bout of chronic hypothermia in Richard Papen’s ravished immune system.

Richard had come closer, he noticed. Or perhaps, he had moved towards him. He doubted as much, as unconscious movements were unthinkable to someone who moved with the precision of a soldier, unless some gravitational pull had existed, or as if the universe had squeezed the space between the two men smaller.

"Henry? You’ve gotten so wet, taking my clothes to dry. I’m sorry." He drew a thin hand from within the blanket, letting it rest against Henry’s knee in his examination. The touch was so uncommon that it tingled through the cloth of Henry’s clothes.

"Not at all. I can change relatively easily. I could get us both something warmer."

He shifted, when Richard didn’t, and it seemed as though, through will of neither of their own, Richard’s hand rested now on his thigh. Henry now, felt something in him stir in a way that, save for a few, was somewhat unfamiliar to him, what that made him feel a hot bloodrush that belonged to a virgin, making him feel heat beneath his color that the cold air had not afforded him before.

Richard made a started sound, for a moment, and it was enough to make him drop his comical hold on the massive, plush blanket, and it rode down until it framed his nearly completely visible naked form.

"Sorry," He said again, with a touch of self consciousness.

Henry, still transfixed, couldn’t stop himself from looking at the parts of Richard now exposed. “Don’t,” he told him, meaning don’t apologize. For a moment, it was strangely like being alive.

"You should get out of the wet clothes." Richard said again, this time chancing a shy tug at one of Henry’s beltloops. 

He didn’t know how it happened that Richard would have helped him out of the wet trousers, or pushed, standing so close—and at such scarlet attention—his jacket from his shoulders, or bent down with each button that he unfastened, but he did.

And when Richard was done, he was kneeling before Henry like a man at an alter, his face red and cast downward, as they both had to admit to themselves that there was no reason bound by practicality for them ot have taken Henry’s underwear off.

"May I?" Richard asked.

Henry swallowed once. It felt like one of the failed bacchanal evenings, with Francis, kittenish and sad when Camilla and Charles both had disappeared, and the way he’d nodded then, told himself it didn’t count if it was a bacchanal, called himself a virgin after that.

He nodded again, and Richard kissed his tip. Sober, it was nothing Henry had experienced in his life, and the shudder that ran through him as Richard slowly, tentatively wrapped himself around Henry’s cock was barely suppressable. 

A hand knotted in Richard’s hair, guiding him down onto Henry’s arousal, aiding and watching the motion of his head that gave the ebb and flow of pleasure. He felt more visceral, more alive, more feral than he thought he ever would with everyone involved alive again. He pushed Richard down further, smirking as he made a muffled sound of alarm, as his eyes pricked and widened.

It was when he’d shuddered to a final, burning climax that tore a shroud of emptiness away from him, and Richard made a sloppy mess of his own face trying to catch all the aftermath of his own curious mouth that either of them could speak.

"But," Richard wiped at his mouth, embarrassed, "I’m not into this sort of thing.” 

Henry only raised an eyebrow. 

"I wasn’t supposed to be." He tried to explain. "I swore I wouldn’t like that. But… Henry? Can we just… can we share your bed?"

Henry nodded. Richard was heterosexual. He was a virgin. This didn’t count, and Bunny was an accident. Those were the lies that seemed Divine Truths to others, he mused.

**Author's Note:**

> I kinda made fun of Richard's constant somewhat "no homo" thing he has going in canon here. Also, I feel like Henry has a very greek view of sexuality (aka, labels Were Not A Thing They Used, and neither does Henry).


End file.
